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Friday, August 3, 2012

Home At Last...?

Well, I know that a lot of you are waiting and wondering what is going on down here with the hubby and I at Ft. Campbell.Not a whole lot.We managed to arrive safely after about 8 hours on the road, with only 2 stops along the way for gas, snacks, and to get our moving truck weighed. Our belongings weigh over 6,000 pounds!

The cats fared fairly well. Zorro cried all the way to St. Louis. He would get really worked up and then his cries would gradually get quieter and quieter and he would lay down. Just when I forgot that I was traveling with cats, he started flipping in his cage and crying all over again. Pearl chimed in here and there, but she fell silent shortly after leaving Kansas and resorted to staring at the side of her cage. I finally switched where their carriers were in the car when we stopped outside of St. Louis, and finally, FINALLY I could drive without crying and howling. They were essentially asleep once we arrived.The next morning after arriving we got up and unloaded our moving truck into a storage unit. It only took us about 3 hours, which is pretty amazing considering that it was just the two of us and we had to unload crazy heavy furniture! I had to rest up to move the heavy stuff. Luckily we avoided the afternoon heat. I will say that the first thing I noticed about this area is how GREEN the grass is! Kansas was looking a little dried up. Even though it is hot here too, the greenery makes it a little more refreshing. Plus it rains more often. We have already had 3 or 4 storm systems move through since we've been here, and there has been a significant amount of overcast skies each day.For those of you who do not know, Chris's orders were
changed relatively quickly, and we were left somewhat scrambling to get ready for this move. I feel that we were pretty lucky to end up with a house
on base, considering we were number 46 or something on the housing wait
list. We didn't get our 3 bedroom house...we got a 4 bedroom house! Not
quite sure what we will do with all that space, but it will be fun to
fill it up with some visitors and hopefully some kids! The downside to all this is that the
house will not be ready until August 7th. Apparently they are giving the
unit some upgrades. We drove by the house the other day, and we're
already getting mail here! It feels kind of surreal that this is
finally happening. We took a look around, but didn't get to go inside as we do
not have the keys yet.In the meantime, we have been
fortunate enough to be staying with a friend of Chris' from ROTC at KU. She lives in the neighboring city of Clarksville, and has a dog, so the
cats have holed up in our bedroom and have adjusted better than I could
have hoped for! They get to come out and roam the house and look for
trouble after Ellie has been kenneled up for the night.I have been taking it easy, watching the Olympics, and digging around online to find information about things to do in Clarksville. I found this website to be a very helpful starting point for information. Chris reported on August 1st for in-processing, so he will have several days of paperwork and junk to do. Once we move in on post, there will be more for me to do. I intend to pick up the job hunt, starting with the childcare centers on post (there are a billion) and Chris told me that Ft. Campbell is one of the top bases in the country for youth programs and activities. I will say that driving around base, there is a real feeling of community and it seems very family oriented, and I'm sure it will very quickly feel like home. We hope to visit the farmer's market tomorrow morning, and will be either going to see Movies in the Park or Jazz on the Lawn at a local winery. We have already looked into getting our fishing licenses so we can go to Land Between the Lakes not far from here in Kentucky. The outdoor sports around here are AMAZING!I am hoping that by this time next week, I will be doing this very thing: blogging in our NEW house. It will be nice not to be homeless!